Bombs away

Bombs were the big story Wednesday, with two reported in the Alamo City and a third one found on national television.

<font size="-2"Chris Sligh /AP

San Antonio police responded to reports of two explosive devices after lunch and near downtown. And then a crappy singer got booted off “American Idol,” leaving the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of San Antonio’s Haley Scarnato and Phil Stacey, the two lowest vote-getters to survive the cut.

The Anchor Desk poses the philosophical question: Would you want to watch American Idol every night of the week, or do you want to take your chances with a ticking bomb in your yard? I vote “yard bomb.”

Explosive Day, SA

The first bomb was found near Fort Sam Houston shortly after 2 p.m. A resident called police to say he had been running errands in his mom’s mini-van with a pipe bomb inside. He found it at her house and put it in the van, unaware of what it was.

Fifteen minutes later, a man called NBC affiliate WOAI and told them he had a bomb. The station told him they had the show Identity, so it was a wash. Police, however, thought it was worth checking out. No bombs, but the guy was arrested on traffic warrants.

Bad Singing

That describes American Idol, and it goes double for Chris Sligh, who was put out of America’s misery last night when viewers voted him off of the show. Simon Cowell, Idol’s version of the Dark Lord Morgoth, trashed the guy more than he trashed everyone else. Cowell also had less-than-kind words for Scarnato, who has reached John Schneider-like, iconic status in celebrity-starved San Antonio.

• What’s eating Billy G.?: Brent Zwerneman tries to figure out why A&M Men’s Basketball Coach Billy Clyde Gillispie seems so ready to leave, even though he is ostensibly staying. Yeah, it’s College Station, but the money is good, the school loves him, the team is top-notch and recruits are falling over themselves to play for him.

Rolling river

Canyon Lake is rising and that means the Guadalupe River will be flowing nicely this weekend. That’s good news for tourists and even better news for the businesses that live off them. The New Braunfels police — who spend a great deal of time arresting drunk, stone, abusive and sometimes naked people on the river — are probably ambivalent on the topic.

Rolling heads

Jay Kimbrough, the newly-appointed conservator of the Texas Youth Commission in the wake of a sex abuse scandal and the cover-up that followed, plans to clean house by firing dozens of felons who got hired by the agency.